600 Jordanian students return from Syria, apply to public universities

AMMAN — The Higher Education Council (HEC) on Thursday authorised the Kingdom’s universities to handle the admission of Jordanians who were enrolled in Syrian universities and could not finish their studies due to the current turmoil in the country.

Mustafa Odwan, secretary general of the Higher Education Ministry, said 600 of the students who returned from Syria have submitted applications to the ministry to continue their studies at public universities.

“Most of these students could not bring their documents from Syria; thus, we authorised universities here to evaluate their status and deal with them at their own discretion,” Odwan told The Jordan Times over the phone.

He explained that the students will study the same subjects they were studying in Syria and if they manage to “pass”, they can continue in the same specialty.

The higher education official also noted that the condition related to the minimum General Secondary Certificate Examination (Tawjihi) score that qualifies students to be accepted in a certain subject was waived for the returnees.

More than 900 Jordanians were studying in Syrian universities; some 600 decided to continue their education here, while the rest returned to Syria, Odwan said.

Also on Thursday, the HEC decided to accept 13,902 of the students who pass the Tawjihi winter session in the Kingdom’s public universities.

The council also decided to exempt students with severe disabilities from sitting for an English language proficiency exam as a precondition to be accepted in postgraduate studies, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The council also approved adding a second summer semester to the academic year, and students can choose which semester to join.